Comic Created By Local Artist Sheds Light On How Tough It Is For Single Parents To Find Housing In Singapore

The Struggles Of Single Parents

While some of us whined about not having a Valentine this week, others were stressed out about finding a place to live after their divorce.

Because of this lack of social awareness towards the problems that many divorcees face in getting affordable public housing, local artist Clogtwo created a comic titled “Homes” that may help highlight this issue.

Real-Life Stories

Women’s advocacy group Association of Women For Action And Research (Aware) recently shared the comic, the first in a series of four, on its Facebook page. It’s inspired by interviews with 55 single parents on housing access, the group said:

The first comic depicts the pain experienced by a single mother trying to find a house to live in during the 3-month wait for a divorce to be finalized.

She encounters obstacle after obstacle from the authorities, who are seemingly unsympathetic to her plight, even suggesting that she should live with her parents.

It’s told through flashbacks by the mother upon seeing her daughter’s drawings of their multiple dwellings:

Pertinent Issue

The comic shines the spotlight on a very pertinent issue: The divorce rates in Singapore are alarmingly high, yet the improvement of measures taken to keep up with such rates are rather stagnant. Why is that so?

Some people show no pity towards divorced people, especially women, and have a rather flawed perception of them — that there’s just something wrong with them, whether they are selfish, commitment freaks or promiscuous.

Even if this may be true in some cases, it’s better to spare a thought for those who may have found themselves divorced than deny them our help after their break-up, especially if they are parents.

The first comic outlines some things that the authorities can do to relieve the burden for single parents: